


(I've been a fool, but) strawberries and cigarettes (always taste like blue eyes)

by harin91



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Cigarettes, First Kiss, Inspired by Music, M/M, Strawberries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 22:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20517542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harin91/pseuds/harin91
Summary: daydreams with that sugar and smoke rings





	(I've been a fool, but) strawberries and cigarettes (always taste like blue eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a small ficlet inspired by [Troye Sivan's Strawberries and Cigarettes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjase8-PQ_w), since I find some of his songs absolutely fitting my Webgott aesthetic/headcanons.
> 
> Please note that **this work isn't beta-ed** and **English is not my first language**, apologises for any mistake you might find.
> 
> Enjoy!

Liebgott doesn’t understand what constantly draws him to effortlessly rotate in Webster’s orbit.   
He’s not the college student, he’s not the acculturated one.   
He’s  _ smart _ ( _ witty. Clever. _ All Webster’s words used at least once to describe him in passing, no big deal. Webster is  _ that _ careless with words anyway. Thinks since he knows them all, he can speak them whenever), but he hasn’t studied the subjects: physics. Psychology, maybe. Chemistry.

Still, he knows there is something. An invisible force pushing him to Webster: he feels it, like a rope pulled tight from his stomach, tied at the back of his belly button. Whenever he sees Webster, he has to get near. Whenever he can’t immediately spot him among the other men, he looks for him.

There are times when he knows Webster is away doing something else (on patrol or on interpreting duties for the COs, usually) some place Liebgott is not supposed to be.   
Those are the times when he catches himself thinking about the other even more often than usual and, to be honest, that is the most confusing and upsetting part of the whole ordeal.

Then there are the times when they are alone together.   
The last two to clear the house they have been occupying for the night, the first two on a truck waiting for the rest of the platoon to gather their things and join them for the ride, the moments he catches Webster sitting just a little farther from the group than usual, smoking or writing in his journal, studying his surroundings with a faraway look lost in distant thoughts.   
Those times, the pull to get closer is so strong it makes Liebgott breathless and resisting is just a painful business he really wish he could be spared.

Webster had never been completely accepted back into Easy and Liebgott is partially at fault for that, being one of the firsts to react poorly to his return, to fiercely ostracize and antagonize Webster all through Haguenau for the sake of his own hurt soul, betrayed feelings.

For Webster’s part, there had never been official excuses or apologies about what happened (or better, didn’t happen) so there had never been reasons or motivations for the other men to just let him be, like things could go back to how they were.

Not having been there for Easy during the worst months of the company’s history of war erased most of the warmth in Webster’s relations with the others, something that had been there in Holland and maybe even before D-Day and England, even though Webster had been a Fox guy at the time.

Still, he is a Toccoa man like Liebgott and the surviving others, they have gotten their jump wings together and have been in almost the same battles all through Europe ( _ almost _ being the key word, really).

Webster has come back to be treated like a replacement by most of them. Some others prefer to try and ignore him, while just a few have warmed back up to the man, but not the original Easy nucleus, never them.

And Liebgott can understand all of it, really, even without having ever been near a psychology book in his life.   
In fact, if it wasn’t for the pull he felt and the out of breath feeling that came with keeping his distance from the man, he too would keep on giving Webster the cold shoulder.

It just seems impossible at the moment, though.

Physics, chemistry or whatever is going on’s fault.

Someplace in Germany, he finds Webster sitting by himself at the side of a road, helmet upturned and places next to his leg, a lone figure of drab olive in a sea of cultivated fields surrounding them.   
He’s flush and sweaty, looking slightly out of breath.

He’s smiling, a rare sight these days, looking down at the content of his helmet.

As Liebgott approaches him, he can see what the content is: strawberries.   
Red and plump and delicious looking.

“Where’d you get those?” he asks, crouching down to inspect Webster’s uncommon loot closely.

“Oh, I helped a farmer unstuck his cart,” explains Webster, looking up at Liebgott and squinting due to the sun rays shining down on the two of them: “He gave me a thank you gift.”

“Didn’t peg you for a mechanic, Web.” he comments, smirking.

“He really just needed a hand lifting the thing and push. You only have to know the basic law of the lever, I guess.” says back Webster, and of course he then starts talking about some Archimedes guy and the greeks and physics.   
Of course.

Liebgott just sits down next to him, spreads his legs out comfortably like an educated high-society child would never do and flickers up his lighter to burn the tip of a cigarette.

Webster got it from when he used to make up one third of a trio with Hoobler and Van Klinken: the tendency to wander around, talk to the locals, sometimes receive free things from them, like little useless trinkets to keep or food to share with the rest of second platoon.   
He’s a writer first and foremost: curious by nature, taking the lulls in between (less and less) fighting hours and (more and more) occupation duty as an opportunity for sightseeing and learn instead of sleeping like everybody else.

Where Liebgott considers his knowledge of the language a nuisance that only means more hours on translation duties, Webster uses German as if they were tourists and not paratroopers fighting a war.   
They both don’t like the Germans (that’s something they have in common: hate. An abundance of it): but if Liebgott can be scraping and abusive while yelling orders and insults in their faces, Webster usually prefers to keep quiet and write about it later.

Liebgott can’t help but think that Webster still has got that college boy attitude with him, the born rich superficiality and naivety that he so much despises other people for (and still manages to pester Web about), but can’t seem to consider a flaw about the other soldier.   
It’s just another one of his characteristics, a thing that makes Webster who he is.

“Are they any good?” he asks after a while they spend smoking in a rare lull of silence between them, noticing how far from the rest of the group they are, sitting on the dusty road to the fields.

“Do you want some?” offers Webster when Liebgott’s hand is already picking one fruit inside his helmet.   
It’s a rule in the army: what’s yours is mine as long as I saw you possessing it.

The strawberry tastes sweet and fresh.   
Sweeter than the chocolate bars Liebgott sometimes succeed in stealing from Luz’s stacks of supplies, fresher than the gulps of spring water they drank a few days back, while patrolling the woods.   
It’s a stark contrast with the sour, dry smell and flavour of the cigarette he just finished smoking, a shock.

The taste of the fruit is now so foreign to his army food accustomed tongue that it makes his mouth watering and he immediately digs for another one.

Webster lets him eat, smiling amusedly with his bright blue eyes now fixed on Liebgott, studying his expressions and movements like he would admire the feeding habits of a wild animal.

“What does the taste of strawberry reminds you of?” asks the New Yorker, leaning back with his hands on the ground, arms supporting the weight of his upper body: he looks up to the clear blue sky, just some white clouds edging the horizon.   
“Home?” he adds.

“I don’t know. Anything that doesn’t taste like the shit they feed us reminds me of home.” he answers, his thumb and index finger sticky with the fruits’ red juice.   
He licks them, looking distractedly at Webster’s profile.

“I’ve got so many memories related to tastes and smells, but I can’t recall anything for strawberries. Maybe just… my sister’s perfume on her first day of high school.” recounted Webster, still distracted by the colour of the sky.

“What if from now on this is the memory?” asks Liebgott, eyes scanning the wide and open, empty fields around them.

“Now? You and me sitting on a road?” inquires Webster, one eyebrow raised as he finally glances back at the other soldier.   
Liebgott just shrugs, meeting his bright blue gaze.

“Does something more monumental need to happen for you to remember it?” asks amusedly Liebgott, keeping eye contact like it’s a dare, a challenge.

It’s Webster’s time to shrug and reply: “I don’t know.” in earnest, with a smile that’s calm and relaxing, so far away from war and the army and the rest of Easy.

That’s when Liebgott decides he doesn’t want to resist the force anymore.   
He gets as close as he dares, the pull a burning sensation of yearning in his belly.

Webster’s lips taste salty; his mouth is a mix of acrid smoke and sweet red.   
Or maybe that’s just how he kisses, surprised, with open ocean eyes.

And for Liebgott, years after the war, the memory lingers.


End file.
